At around this time last week I uttered the immortal phrase that the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was being relatively quiet.
As if fate had been tempted almost immediately afterwards a flurry of activity exploded that really took me until Wednesday (26/8/15) to deal with. As a result I've not got any further in researching how the fight in Iraq's Anbar province is progressing.
I gather though that some small progress has been made by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). However with the offensive receiving almost no coverage whatsoever this is more of a rumour rather then something I can confirm let alone give details on.
In an incident that did receive some coverage though on Thursday (27/8/15) an ISIL Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) exploded within ISIL lines in Al-Jaraishi area to the north of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province around 100km (60 miles) west of Baghdad. This explosion killed the deputy head of the Anbar operational command and the head of the 10th Division that is fighting in the area.
Although the loss of these two Generals on its own will not be enough to defeat the ISF's Anbar operation the ISF does have a shortage of skilled and experienced officers and constantly having to replace them disrupts the planning and consistency of the operation.
Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga having been having more success. On Wednesday (26/8/15) they launched an operation from Kirkuk - 120km (70 miles) south-east of Mosul and 265km (160 miles) north of Baghdad. This involved them clearing ISIL from villages and positions from Kirkuk's southern suburbs to the town of Daqouq around 30km (17 miles) to the south.
By Wednesday evening ISIL had been forced to withdraw from Daqouq following fighting which left 12 ISIL fighters dead and more then 30 wounded. The Peshmerga also managed to liberate the village of Diwayzat in the Makhmur region which is around 55km (33 miles) south west of Erbil and 70km (40 miles) north-west of Kirkuk.
The area between Kirkuk and Baiji 90km (50 miles) to the south-west remains a mess. The ISF control roughly three quarters of the Baiji itself and around one third of the oil refinery that sits on it's outskirts. However with ISIL continuing to find safe haven in the area Hawija district between Kirkuk and Baiji there exists a constant state of either the ISF or ISIL launching an attack that is repelled before the other side launches a counter attack that is also repelled.
One thing that has been hampering my progress in following the war is that the Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) as the US-led coalition is formally known continues to block me on Twitter. This is largely symbolic intended to send the message that while certain views such as Turkey's are welcome within the coalition others such as mine are not.
However it seems there has been little change in the nature of tempo of the air operation with roughly 25-30 air-strikes being carried out each day. For example yesterday CJTFOIR carried out 25 strikes in Iraq primarily around Baiji and 4 strikes in Syria. This was reported in the western media as a day long "pounding" of ISIL positions. With ISIL controlling an area of roughly 5000km^2 (3000mile^2) across Iraq and Syria describing 25 air-strikes as a "pounding" strikes me as a gross exaggeration.
On Thursday (27/8/15) the US confirmed that one of it's pinprick air-strikes had succeeded in killing a British born ISIL fighter - Junaid Hussain (AKA; Abu Hussain al-Britani) near the Syrian city of Raqqa on Tuesday (25/8/15). Hussain is well known as part of the so-called East London Network that also includes ISIL's self-styled executioner-in-chief Mohammed Emwazi (AKA; Jihadi John).
His main role within the organisation was to lead ISIL's online recruiting efforts both to encourage English speakers to travel to join the group and to carry out attacks in their homelands. The US accuse him of personally being responsible for directing the May 3rd (3/5/15) terror attack in Garland, Texas, US although they have offered scant evidence to support this bold propaganda claim.
Unlike US Special Forces raid in May which killed Fathi ben Awn ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi (AKA; Abu Sayyaf) or last week's drone strike that killed Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali (AKA; Hajji Mutazz) the killing of Hussain is likely to significantly hinder ISIL's operations.
That's because his role of recruiter and public face of the group is heavily dependent on his personality and charisma making him much harder to replace. For example Trevor Noah may do extremely well as the new host of "The Daily Show" but you know that the program will never be quite the same again now that Jon Stewart is no longer involved.
The most interesting developments of the last week though don't actually involve either ISIL, the ISF nor CJTFOIR directly.
Along Syria's border with Lebanon in Latakia province the Syria government backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia have steadily been pushing the insurgent Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) back from the capital Damascus towards Idlib province. On Thursday (27/8/15) a 48 hour truce was negotiated between the factions in the villages of Fuaa, Kafraya and Zabadani which sits around 30km (18 miles) north-west of Damascus.
JAF appear to have used this truce as a way to concentrate it's efforts on advance down from Idlib province into Latakia province. Today they claim to have seized the entrance to Abu Duhur airport which is one of the last Syrian government positions within Idlib.
Also yesterday ISIL gained five villages and surrounded the town of Marea in Syria's Aleppo province just 20km (12 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. Rather then being a cause for concern for Turkey this is a direct result of a decision on August 9th (9/8/15) by the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) part of the JAF coalition to withdraw from that area.
This was ordered by Turkey via the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) part of the JAF coalition in order to allow the US and the CJTFOIR coalition to support JAF. It was also hoped that ISIL's gaining of territory on the Turkish border would create panic causing the US to authorise Turkey's invasion of Syria in support of JAF.
This close co-ordination between Turkey, JAF and ISIL should been extremely worrying for the international community because if JAF are able to push down from Idlib into Latakia province and then make way for ISIL it will place ISIL directly on Lebanon's border.
At the best of times the Lebanese state exists at the brink of collapse. ISIL moving onto it's border and then across it's border to fight Hezbollah will likely cause the Lebanese state to finally collapse sparking a further refugee crisis and place ISIL directly on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea within striking distance of Europe.
In terms of negotiations between the US and Turkey over Turkey joining the CJTFOIR coalition on Tuesday (25/8/15) the US announced that a deal had been reached and Turkey would begin operations very soon. However they declined to elaborate further.
It seems though that the agreement will see Turkey's anti-ISIL air operations be absorbed into CJTFOIR's command structure - the Air Tasking Order (ATO). As Turkey seems to have no desire to carry out air-strikes against ISIL this seems to be something of a non-issue.
In what seems to be a critical failure by the US though Turkey will still be permitted to carry out air-strikes against Kurdish positions in both Syria and Iraq and those flights will not be included in the ATO nor will require permission from CJTFOIR.
Despite the recent, robust opposition to Turkey's strikes against the Kurds by other members of CJTFOIR the US' unwavering support has led to Turkey continue these strikes. On Tuesday evening they again struck Kurdish positions in Iraq's Dohuk region in what seemed to me as a celebration of the announcement by the US. Yesterday Turkey conducted over-flights of Dohuk but did not drop any bombs in what seemed to be a psychological operation intended to intimidate Iraq's Kurds.
Although officially Turkey is claiming that these air-strikes are against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which it has labelled as a terrorist group members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are claiming that Tuesday's strikes in particular were directed at members of the British and German intelligence services who training Iraq's Kurds.
In reality this is a nonsense but it gives further insight into the deranged and paranoid world the AKP and it's leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which everything - including former AKP Prime Ministers - is a vast conspiracy by foreign intelligence agencies to prevent Erdogan from exercising his god given right of ruling over Turkey for all eternity. Today Turkey has arrested two British journalists who were reporting on the Kurds fight against ISIL
The fact that the AKP thinks that it is acceptable to accuse German and the UK - as members of the NATO alliance - of waging war against Turkey and then launch air-strikes against those countries raises very serious questions as to whether an AKP-led Turkey can continue as a NATO member.
16:45 on 28/8/15 (UK date).
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